Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt join film about Hind Rajab as executive producers

Hollywood stars Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt are joining a group of film industry figures putting their weight behind an upcoming movie about Israel's killing of Palestinian child Hind Rajab in Gaza.

The actors will join Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania's upcoming film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, as executive producers.

Set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 3 September, the film features actual recordings of Rajab pleading for help during a phone call with Red Crescent medics.

Hind Rajab was killed by Israeli soldiers in January 2024 while she was fleeing Gaza City in a car.

An investigation by Forensic Architecture found that Israeli soldiers knew that there were children in the vehicle and that at least 335 bullets were fired at it.

Rajab survived the first round of attacks, in which her immediate relatives died, but was killed before rescuers could reach her.

Pitt and Phoenix will be joined as executive directors by Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, Roma director Alfonso Cuarón and actress Rooney Mara.

Speaking about her film, Ben Hania said: "I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes. That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us."

The film and entertainment industry in the US and other western countries has been widely criticised for its tepid response to the genocide in Gaza, with some insiders describing a culture of censoriousness in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, many actors and film industry figures have spoken out on Israeli atrocities, including heavyweights such as Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton and Susan Sarandon.

Glazer, who is Jewish himself and won an Oscar for his movie The Zone of Interest, about the banal life of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss, was widely criticised within the industry for his criticism of Israeli's actions.

The British director used his Oscar-winning speech to criticise the instrumentalisation of the Holocaust to justify war crimes in Gaza.

“We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict, for so many innocent people," Glazer said during his acceptance speech in March 2024.

"Our film shows where dehumanisation leads, at its worst."